Field Trip [09/24]

They had read the articles (or most of them, anyway), they had seen videos, they had researched and brought in photographs and now it was time to take them public. It was time for a field trip.

I had had this planned earlier in the week but the weather had played spoilsport but in retrospect it was probably better to do this after the class had covered some groundwork. I had picked 4 spots on campus that we would look at and then the class would break into groups, choose one of the spots and write a proposal as a group.  I had given them some background information about the campus and its history in the context of the student movement. I asked them to keep that in  mind when they evaluated the spaces.

The first space we looked at was the children's play pen behind Baldy, we observed the space for a few minutes before one of the groups called dibs on the space. Moving on we walked down the academic spine and here my powers of arbitration were tested severely when several groups started clamoring for ownership. It was a photo finish but I finally managed to assign a team to the space and we moved on to the Commons. While walking as a group it was amusing how the students closest to me were scrupulously talking about the class or not at all, while the others at the back had no qualms about talking about everything but class. Interestingly their position in the group determined their conversation patterns. Once in the Commons we looked at the last two spaces that I had picked out for them, the Commons itself and the area of Lake La Salle behind the university bookstore. When all four groups had picked a space to write their proposal on, I had them spread out all over the Commons and start writing.

It is unusual to see the Commons this deserted and the sight of four groups --- huddled on the bench under the trees, sprawled around the central dividers, grouped around tables ---was quite enchanting. Working in the open seemed to have sparked something in even the quietest boy in class. I walked from group to group, shooting down ideas of turning the clock tower into a discotheque, hearing elaborate volunteer operations for cleaning up litter and watching them attune themselves to the module.